1865 - Catechist Ling

1865

Jian’ou, Fujian

The Methodist Episcopal Church commenced work in the town of Kienning (now called Jian’ou), in northern Fujian Province, in 1865. A small house was rented from a local businessman and turned into a hall where people could come to listen to the gospel being preached or to ask questions about the Bible. The missionaries hired a Chinese man from Fuzhou, Ling, to be the catechist in the new mission at Jian’ou. For the first few months everything seemed promising. Dozens of interested people listened to the message of the Son of God who died on a Cross. Many gospel booklets and tracts were sold, and Ling and his coworkers expressed excitement at the prospects for the kingdom of God in that city. Every year, Confucian students flocked to Jian’ou when the examinations were held. In the summer of 1865 hundreds came in from the surrounding districts. These men,

“…moved with hatred at the sight of a ‘Jesus Hall’ in the very midst of their city, took unto them certain vile fellows of the rabble, and gathering a crowd, set the city on an uproar. They assaulted the ‘Jesus Hall,’ and utterly demolished it, and bringing out the catechist in charge [Ling]… and his helpers, they beat him and otherwise treated him so cruelly and shamefully that the catechist never recovered, but died shortly afterwards.”[1]

The scholars of Jian’ou erected a memorial tablet among the ruins of the ‘Jesus Hall,’ with an inscription that said, ‘Abolish the false, keep the true.’ Underneath the tablet was an explanation “relating how they had abolished the false foreign doctrine, and how they were determined to keep the true old Confucian doctrine, and never, never to allow ‘the foreigners’ Jesus’ to have a hall in their city again.”[2]

Catechist Ling’s wife—whose name was transcribed Chitnio by the early missionaries—had received Christian education in Singapore years before she went on to become one of the greatest ‘Bible women’ in Fujian Province. Ling had travelled from China to Singapore to marry his bride, and they returned to Fujian together to serve the Lord. She later testified, “When I had been married two years my husband left me, and went to glory in heaven. He was a very good, earnest, and faithful man. His work is finished—he is most happy now in that beautiful, blessed home above.”[3]

Satan’s desire to keep the gospel out of Jian’ou failed. A man named Xia was the first convert in the city. He came from a well-educated and influential family. At his baptism he changed his name to a Chinese phrase meaning ‘Keep the truth’–a bold and direct challenge to the memorial tablet that had been erected over the ruins of the Jesus Hall.

Few of the Christians in Jian’ou today know about the sacrifice that Catechist Ling made of his life so long ago, but his blood was not wasted. Today approximately 50,000 of the 500,000 people living in Jian’ou profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

1. Irene H. Barnes, Behind the Great Wall: The Story of the C.E.Z.M.S. Work and Workers in China (London: Marshall Brothers, 1896), 36.
2. Barnes, Behind the Great Wall, 37.
3. Barnes, Behind the Great Wall, 47.